A lively, if befuddling, novel that will challenge even the most diligent readers.
Stevens offers a dreamlike exploration of an extraordinary woman’s relationship with her erratic therapist.
Naomi Billingsley is an eccentric older woman based, with her equally eccentric husband, known only as Mr. Billingsley, in Mayfield, somewhere in the midwestern United States. She regularly visits a therapist named Dr. Birnteller, who regards his new patient as having symptoms that fall “somewhere within the grey area between psychiatric explanation and the supernatural or mystical.” The strange occurrences surrounding her are certainly too numerous to explain away as ordinary; for example, she survives an open bullet wound on her forehead after a routine fight with her husband, who survives equally terrible injuries. At another point, she predicts her own escape from prison, which occurs due to a mysterious earthquake. Mr. Billingsley, meanwhile, slowly turns into an aquatic creature with scales. The setting is absurdist, with characters able to take a wrong turn into Central America off a U.S. highway exit. Dr. Birnteller tries different psychiatric approaches to understand the various impossibilities in the lives of Naomi and those around her; he oscillates between accepting the surreality and suggesting more rational explanations. But Naomi soon begins to suspect that her therapist might be more eccentric than her or her spouse; he holds one of their later sessions in his office astride a white horse, decked out in a suit of armor. Stevens presents a brief, if meandering, novel in which readers never get a firm sense of the characters or their motivations. Still, the title figure’s adventures are intriguing to follow and are nearly impossible to predict; indeed, each turn this story takes is a surprise. The characters are less charmingly quirky than they are incomprehensible, however, and the lines of reality are constantly blurred, such that readers will often have trouble getting their bearings. Readers will be left with far more questions than answers at the conclusion of Naomi’s tale, which many may find unsatisfying.
A lively, if befuddling, novel that will challenge even the most diligent readers.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 127
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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